How To Recognise Anxiety, IRL

We’ve got a lot to thank anxiety for. After all, it’s the emotion of fear that has kept our species alive, particularly back in the time when we were vulnerable to our surrounds (think snarly woolly mammoths and poisonous berries.)

But today, we exist in a flux of high-functioning anxiety over which dress to wear to a wedding on the weekend or if you should be cutting gluten out of your diet. Not exactly life or death stuff.

But more and more of us allow ourselves to permanently exist in a chronic state anxiety. BeyondBlue has found that over two million of us in any one year suffer from anxiety and that 45% of Australian adults will experience a mental health condition in their lifetime. It’s well documented that chronic stress is linked to numerous health conditions and is thought to be one of the biggest causes of inflammation, the catalyst for major physical and psychological illnesses.

According to Clinical Psychologist Dr Samantha Clarke, anxiety is actually important for our survival in two ways. One is the fight or flight response, which is a hardwired response in our limbic system that creates a surge of adrenalin, so that we can become quickly aware of a threat and then react to it. The other it activates the frontal lobe of our brain that helps us to think about the possibility of threat so that we can manage it in advance.

“For example, if we are sitting in a cave and there is a sabre tooth tiger outside we may think, ‘what if it climbs up to the cave, maybe we should build a door to keep it out’. This frontal lobe part of our brain can help us to imagine worst case scenarios and reminds us of problems of the past to help our physical survival. This feared thinking could actually trigger the fight or flight response, as this primitive part of our brain doesn’t easily discriminate between a feared threat and an actual threat,” she explains.

That’s where the problem lies. In our current society we don’t have the same physical threats that we once did, but this primitive part of our brain has not adapted, so we start to worry and ruminate on situations where a fight or flight response isn’t actually helpful for us. For example, if you’re going to present at a work meeting and fixate on all the things that could go wrong, you’ll start to activate a stress response in the body and this physiological reaction (fight or flight) isn’t nearly as helpful in a work meeting as it would be if you were trying to outrun a tiger.

“A positive way to think about anxiety is that it is an excellent cue to check-in and assess the situation. Firstly, acknowledge if there is an actual life or death threat in our environment. If there is that physiological reaction will it be helpful. But if there’s no physical threat, it’s important to take a moment to notice what it is we are fearful of and remind ourselves that this isn’t a life and death situation,” says Dr Clarke.

If you notice you are anxious some of the best things she advises to do are:

1. Stop and label what you are feeling

Ask yourself what you're experiencing right now and take notice if you're feeling scared or fearful.

2. Check out what is it you’re fearful of

Sometimes there will be an answer (a work meeting) and other times there may not be (I am just feeling this sensation right now).

3. Allow yourself to take a moment

Ground yourself. Feel your feet on the ground, relax your muscles in your body and take a few breaths. This will help activate the opposite response from the fight or flight response).

4. See if you are willing to have the feeling of fear

Often when we are moving towards something we care about fear comes along for the ride, the best things we can do is welcome fear as a passenger on our journey and remember that fear like any other emotion doesn’t have control of the show.

5. Focus on the behaviours that matter most to you in this moment

If you are going into a work meeting – focus on slow speech, good eye contact, spending time connecting with each person in the room. Remember that behaviours are what you can control. See if you can allow fear to be there just as it is, as sensation in the body and let go of the thoughts. The best thing we can do is practice putting ourselves in situations that create fear and anxiety (yet are physically safe) so that we start getting practiced at moving with our fear, rather than stopping or changing direction when fear shows up.

Burnout on the Job Is on the Rise6:09

Burnout on the job is on the rise, to the point where companies have farmed out their workers' well-being to employee assistance programs, where stress and anxiety are cited in 70% of incoming calls. Dr. Alden Cass, a clinical psychologist who treats patients in high-stress jobs, discusses the causes and remedies of burnout on Lunch Break with Tanya Rivero. Photo: Getty